Fowlis Easter Church And Churchyard

Fowlis Easter Church and Churchyard

This rectangular-plan aisleless church in simple Gothic style was built in 1453 and substantially renovated in 1889 under the direction of architect Thomas Saunders Robertson, who designed a new roof and bellcote.

The exterior is constructed of polished ashlar with occasional snecking, featuring numerous masons' marks. The building has a slate roof with a chamfered base course and cavetto eaves course, with flat-coped skews and skewputts bearing coats-of-arms. A gabled ashlar bellcote rises to the west; to the east is a gablet with a damaged cross finial. Cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers and brackets are fitted throughout.

Windows are generally single pointed with trefoil heads on the north and south elevations. Those to the west gable and south wall of the chancel are pointed with reticulated tracery, moulded surrounds, and chamfered cills. Boarded doors feature large decorative iron hinges.

The south elevation displays a round-headed door to the left with double moulded reveal splayed to the base, topped by a richly sculpted ogival hoodmould (with weathered details) supported by corbels bearing figures holding shields, with the arms of Lord Gray at the top. To the right is a group of three narrow windows: the nave window, chancel window, and a shorter rood screen window with a square-headed rood loft window above it. A round-headed door with chamfered surround lies at the far right, followed by a 3-light chancel window at the outer right.

The east gable contains a small round traceried window at its centre. The west gable features a 4-light window at its centre.

The north elevation is largely blank, with a rood screen window off-centre left, a round-headed door with chamfered surrounds at the far right, and a First World War memorial plaque to the outer right.

Internally, the walls are papered and painted as plaster, with polished ashlar dressings to doors and windows. Rood screen buttresses are set against the north and south walls. A collar brace roof rises from wallposts, with blank heraldic shields at the base and a frieze with quatrefoil decoration above a boarded ceiling.

A stoup with sculpted fleur-de-lis decoration is recessed to the east of the north door, with a plain stoup to the east of the southwest door. The east wall contains a large, elaborately sculpted sacrament house with an ogival-headed opening flanked by pinnacles. It is surmounted by a panel depicting Christ holding an orb with a cross, flanked by angels, with a further panel above the cornice showing the Annunciation.

A 3-light stained glass window to the southeast commemorates John, 16th Lord Gray (1869); a single stained glass window honours Robert Lamond Macnie (1929).

A damaged octagonal font, probably pre-Reformation, occupies the west end and bears sculpted scenes of the life of Christ. A timber screen dating from 1889 stands at the west end, incorporating doors from the original rood screen with linenfold and traceried panels below and crocketed balusters above.

Historic moveable items include jougs, an offertory ladle, and a bronze alms dish dated 1487 affixed to the wall at the north door. A heptagonal pulpit dating from circa 1889 features stairs, panelling, and buttresses echoing the rood screen doors. The organ—a single manual and pedal instrument in a Gothic case with painted pipes—was made by Scott Brothers and Co of Dundee in 1889. Two oil lamps, probably also from 1889, are mounted on the organ case and on the wall adjoining the sacrament house.

Five paintings on panels are preserved: a large crucifixion on the west wall, dated to the late 15th century with a Latin inscription on the frame pertaining to the church; a damaged 16th-century composition on the north wall showing Christ with St Catherine, John the Baptist, the Virgin and Child, and others; five male figures dated to the late 15th century on the west wall; Christ, Saints and Apostles on the east wall dated to the 16th century; and a Dove and Ark in oil on copper at the north door, 16th century.

The churchyard contains some 17th-century and many fine 18th and 19th-century tombstones. A cross and graveslab to the south of the south elevation are of uncertain date. A rubble boundary wall with rounded rubble coping encloses the site.